Learn the Psychology of Realizing Your Dreams
A free 30-minute lecture with Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar
This is a small sample of the 40+ hours of video lessons you get in the Certificate in Wholebeing Positive Psychology program. Want more? Join us for the next course, starting soon!
Experience a Whole-Person Approach to
Positive Psychology and Optimal Well-Being
Positive Psychology is revolutionizing how we experience happiness. Research-based and heart-opening, the tools and practices of this cutting-edge science have infused the lives and careers of thousands of people around the world with greater joy and meaning. Engage brain, body, and heart with a powerful combination of intellectual rigor, authentic connection, and physical expression—and find out what it’s like to have an embodied experience of whole-person well-being.
In the year-long Certificate in Wholebeing Positive Psychology course, you’ll learn to
Bring about lasting change in yourself and in organizations
Create healthy personal and professional relationships
Build positive emotions and the resilience to deal with painful ones
Develop grounded optimism as you reach towards your ideal self.
The course uses the SPIRE methodology for whole-person happiness—a pioneering approach that considers all aspects of your life.
For coaches, leaders, teachers, health professionals, social workers, psychologists, and anyone who wants to make tomorrow a little bit better than today.
..Whether you want to improve your home life, better your workplace, grow personally or professionally, or start a new career, the Certificate in Positive Psychology offers you in-depth study, world-class faculty, and transformative experiences.
Online Modules that combine prerecorded video lectures, live question-and-answer sessions via video webinars with rotating core faculty; webinars with special guests focusing on the practice of positive psychology; reading assignments and homework; forum discussions and small-group work.
Two Virtual Immersions that bring together faculty and students from around the world for personal interaction, dynamic exercises, and a peaceful yet powerful gathering of community. Immersions are held virtually on March 4—March 8 and August 19— August 23
Ongoing Interaction with small groups of fellow students in an atmosphere of support and collaboration.
Continuing Education Credits are available. Learn more. Questions? Contact our help desk at [email protected]
Register Online
Program Outline
Course Flow
All Modules are online.
- 1. Intro to Positive Psychology
- 2. Onsite Immersion
- 3. What is Happiness?
- 4. Realizing Dreams
- 5. Change
- 6. Mind-Body Connection
- 7. Relationships
- 8. Coaching
- 9. Choice & Co-Creating Reality
- 10. Onsite Immersion
- Full Calendar
This module introduces the emerging field of Positive Psychology—the scientific study of optimal human functioning. Students are exposed to the theoretical and practical implications of a positive focus; the positivity ratio; dealing with painful emotions through acceptance, gratitude and appreciation; and attaining lasting change.
This module moves the class from an online experience to a community of support, setting the stage for the group work to come. Peer groups of six are created during this time, and students leave with a plan of action for instituting positive habits through the 30-day challenge and a group-determined structure for the peer communications.
The onsite schedule includes didactic lectures, reflective/introspective exercises such as meditation and journaling, connected learning through small groups or dyads, and optional movement breaks such as yoga.
This module begins by defining happiness as the overall experience of meaning and pleasure. Students are then introduced to the theory and practice of leading a happy life, one that combines positive emotions and a sense of purpose. Topics covered include finding flow, identifying our purpose, dealing with stress and procrastination, and the happiness revolution.
We all have dreams and aspirations, however most people's dreams remain unrealized. This module looks at how we can cultivate the seed of hope and help it flourish. Topics covered include beliefs as self- fulfilling prophecies, setting goals, focusing on personal strengths, and learning from failure.
Most change-efforts fail. A great deal of money and effort is spent by individuals and organizations attempting to bring about change, and yet what we mostly witness is the "honeymoon effect"—the intervention having only a temporary, short-lived effect. In this module—drawing on the latest research in neuroscience and techniques spanning the ABCs of psychology (affect, behavior, cognition)—students learn how to bring about personal and organizational change that lasts.
Over the past few decades Western scientists and practitioners have become increasingly interested in the mind-body connection. This module introduces well- researched and thoroughly validated tools and techniques that can enhance the quality of our lives. Topics include mindfulness meditation, physical exercise, nutrition, sleep, and human touch.
Relationships are the number one generator of well-being; gone awry, they produce pain and misery. This module attempts to distinguish between myths and facts in the realm of relationships—whether between lovers, friends, family members, as well as teachers and students. It introduces the science behind this seemingly elusive realm, without extinguishing its allure and beauty.
Positive Psychology can provide the scientific grounding to coaching, while coaching can be considered the applied arm of Positive Psychology. This module, while drawing on the strengths- based approach as well as solution-focused and evidence- based coaching, looks at a process to help individuals and organizations realize their goals and fulfill their potential.
At every moment in our lives we have a choice. Moments add up to a lifetime; choices add up to a life. This module summarizes the material presented in the previous seven through the choices that we make—whether major choices such as deciding on the kind of work we want to pursue or the kind of person we want to spend our lives with, to minor choices such as the physical posture we choose to assume when walking into a room or the way we respond to a request from a colleague. It is through these choices—major and minor—that we become co- creators of our reality.
In this final module, participants move from students to teachers. By synthesizing and summarizing what is personally most compelling about positive psychology via the final project, and presenting to a small group of peers, this module emphasizes the concept of serving it forward—sharing with others key lessons learned. This way, even though the class ends, the impact on the individual and the community continues to move forward.
At the conclusion of the last immersion, you’ll receive your Certificate in Whole Person Positive Psychology from Wholebeing Institute.
Click Image to Enlarge
- 1. Intro to Positive Psychology
- 2. Onsite Immersion
- 3. What is Happiness?
- 4. Realizing Dreams
- 5. Change
- 6. Mind-Body Connection
- 7. Relationships
- 8. Coaching
- 9. Choice & Co-Creating Reality
- 10. Onsite Immersion
- Full Calendar
This module introduces the emerging field of Positive Psychology—the scientific study of optimal human functioning. Students are exposed to the theoretical and practical implications of a positive focus; the positivity ratio; dealing with painful emotions through acceptance, gratitude and appreciation; and attaining lasting change.
This module moves the class from an online experience to a community of support, setting the stage for the group work to come. Peer groups of six are created during this time, and students leave with a plan of action for instituting positive habits through the 30-day challenge and a group-determined structure for the peer communications.
The onsite schedule includes didactic lectures, reflective/introspective exercises such as meditation and journaling, connected learning through small groups or dyads, and optional movement breaks such as yoga.
This module begins by defining happiness as the overall experience of meaning and pleasure. Students are then introduced to the theory and practice of leading a happy life, one that combines positive emotions and a sense of purpose. Topics covered include finding flow, identifying our purpose, dealing with stress and procrastination, and the happiness revolution.
We all have dreams and aspirations, however most people's dreams remain unrealized. This module looks at how we can cultivate the seed of hope and help it flourish. Topics covered include beliefs as self- fulfilling prophecies, setting goals, focusing on personal strengths, and learning from failure.
Most change-efforts fail. A great deal of money and effort is spent by individuals and organizations attempting to bring about change, and yet what we mostly witness is the "honeymoon effect"—the intervention having only a temporary, short-lived effect. In this module—drawing on the latest research in neuroscience and techniques spanning the ABCs of psychology (affect, behavior, cognition)—students learn how to bring about personal and organizational change that lasts.
Over the past few decades Western scientists and practitioners have become increasingly interested in the mind-body connection. This module introduces well- researched and thoroughly validated tools and techniques that can enhance the quality of our lives. Topics include mindfulness meditation, physical exercise, nutrition, sleep, and human touch.
Relationships are the number one generator of well-being; gone awry, they produce pain and misery. This module attempts to distinguish between myths and facts in the realm of relationships—whether between lovers, friends, family members, as well as teachers and students. It introduces the science behind this seemingly elusive realm, without extinguishing its allure and beauty.
Positive Psychology can provide the scientific grounding to coaching, while coaching can be considered the applied arm of Positive Psychology. This module, while drawing on the strengths- based approach as well as solution-focused and evidence- based coaching, looks at a process to help individuals and organizations realize their goals and fulfill their potential.
At every moment in our lives we have a choice. Moments add up to a lifetime; choices add up to a life. This module summarizes the material presented in the previous seven through the choices that we make—whether major choices such as deciding on the kind of work we want to pursue or the kind of person we want to spend our lives with, to minor choices such as the physical posture we choose to assume when walking into a room or the way we respond to a request from a colleague. It is through these choices—major and minor—that we become co- creators of our reality.
In this final module, participants move from students to teachers. By synthesizing and summarizing what is personally most compelling about positive psychology via the final project, and presenting to a small group of peers, this module emphasizes the concept of serving it forward—sharing with others key lessons learned. This way, even though the class ends, the impact on the individual and the community continues to move forward.
At the conclusion of the last immersion, you’ll receive your Certificate in Whole Person Positive Psychology from Wholebeing Institute.
Click Image to Enlarge
Core Faculty
Megan McDonough, CEO and co-founder of Wholebeing Institute, is the award-winning author of Infinity in a Box, A Minute for Me, and Radically Receptive Meditation.
Maria Sirois, PsyD, has been teaching at the forefront of wellness, psychology, and spirituality for more than two decades. She’s the author of Every Day Counts and A Short Course in Happiness After Loss.
Megha Nancy Buttenheim, CiPP, is the founding director of Let Your Yoga Dance® LLC. She is a faculty member at Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health and at Nosara Yoga Institute in Costa Rica.
Phoebe Atkinson, CiPP, LiSW, delivers executive leadership programs and co-facilitates an ongoing program at Rutgers University Institute for Women’s Leadership.
Special Guest Faculty
Joan Borysenko, PhD
Pioneer in mind-body medicine
Richard Miller, PhD
Founder, Integrative Restoration Institute
Lynda Wallace, CiPP
Best-selling author of A Short Course in Happiness
Margarita Tarragona, PhD
Author of Positive Identities: Positive Psychology and Narrative Practices
Register Online
See what —Megan McDonough, Dr. Maria Sirois, and Dr. Tal Ben- Shahar—have to say about the program
Registration Information
Tuition: $3,800
Register Online
For more information contact [email protected]